Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to user authentication and, more specifically, to secure code generation for customer tracking.
Description of the Related Art
Businesses oftentimes want to provide benefits to customers for a variety of reasons. For example, businesses may provide loyalty rewards to incentivize customers to become or remain repeat customers. Business may also provide rewards to “very important persons” such as celebrities, who may provide businesses with valuable publicity. Businesses may also provide customers with benefits in the form of refillable (or non-refillable) prepayment mechanisms (e.g., gift cards).
Typically, the benefits are provided to customers in the form of a piece of paper or cardboard, or a plastic card on which an encoded mark such as a bar code or quick response code (QR code) is printed. Customers may scan these encoded marks at hardware present in a store in order to obtain benefits. Printed encoded marks are also displayable on a smart phone, which provides customers the freedom from carrying individual pieces of paper or cards.
One drawback with these forms of encoded marks is that they are susceptible to forgery or improper duplicate use. More specifically, while a customer is displaying an encoded mark at a store, an imposter may photograph or otherwise copy that encoded mark. Customers may also voluntarily permit copying the encoded mark by friends or family, which would allow duplicate use of that mark.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art are more effective techniques to allow customers to obtain customer benefits while making forgery more difficult.